Review: Tyan Tachyon G9800 PRO-M 128MB

Introduction

TYAN TACHYON G9800
PRO-M 128MB

Tyan recently impressed us
with its non-reference Radeon 9600 Pro graphics card. Branded under the
Tachyon name, its double-sided cooler and variable-fan speed control
through a Windows-based GUI made it one
of the better 9600 Pros currently being passed through reviewing
websites across the big world wide web.

The 9600 Pro, though, is a
midrange card with an associated midrange price. £120 will buy you
enough power to run the latest games at 1024x768x32 with no or little
image enhancement applied. The problem is that cutting-edge games are
now starting to use advanced image and rendering features as standard. A few games
have popped up that require DX9 compliance and which make full use of
the advanced vertex and pixel shaders that the API has to offer. Once
you begin to bog down a midrange card with advanced gaming, albeit a
card with full DX9 compatibility, one needs to look higher up in the
range if fluid frame-rates or high resolutions is what you hanker for.

Tyan seems willing to
oblige lovers of high frame rates and fat wallets. Tyan is one of ATi's main partners,
so it's no surprise that it produces cards based on every VPU designed
by the Canadians. The Tyan Tachyon G9800 PRO-M, as you may have guessed,
is Tyan's Radeon 9800 PRO with a slight twist. We expect a card with a
custom look, decent performance and a few features the reference card
doesn't carry.